Yesterday's Kings

by Angus Wells

  Even so … Cullyn waited until they had gone back down the trail and then ran to Eben’s cottage, the fox at his side.

  “They approach,” he said.

  “Then we’d best go.” Eben set a fresh bandage around Laurens’s ribs and motioned that the soldier rise. “I’d have given you more time, but the priest will find the way ere long.”

  “I’m well healed.” Laurens struggled upright. “I’ve taken worse wounds and lived.” Cullyn wondered at that, for Laurens’s face was still pale and he moved unsteadily as he dressed. “Where do we go?”

  “Into Coim’na Drhu, after this willful young woman.” Eben gathered supplies as he spoke: potions and books that he stuffed into a satchel. “And you’ve a hard ride ahead.”

  “Coim’na Drhu?” Laurens paused in his dressing. “Are you mad?”

  “Some say so,” Eben returned cheerfully. “But what else?”

  “Back to the keep and throw ourselves on Lord Bartram’s mercy. He’s a fair man.”

  “Who, from all this youngling has told me”—Eben gestured at Cullyn—“listens to the priest and the adulterous captain.”

  “Even so,” Laurens grunted as he struggled into his breeches. “Into the fey lands?”

  “If we’re to escape the priest’s questioning, then yes,” Eben said. “If we’re to get this girl back—yes!”

  “Have I any choice?” Laurens asked.

  “You can stay here and die, when the priest finds you. Or—”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Eben thrust a finger in Cullyn’s direction. “He’s syn’qui.”

  Laurens stared at Cullyn. “Him?”

  “As best I can judge. Why else are you here?”

  “I don’t know.” Laurens fastened his breeches. “But … if you believe that …”

  “I do.”

  “Then we’d best be gone.”

  They gathered food and went to the stable. Cullyn saddled the mounts: Fey and Laurens’s bay mare, Eben’s mule. Animals darted about their feet—dogs and cats and badgers, and foxes. Eben spoke to them as he mounted the mule.

  “All well, I’ll be back. Until then …” He gusted a sigh. “Shall we depart before Per Fendur finds us?”

  They rode north at first and then turned eastward, toward the Alagordar. They went slowly, for fear of opening Laurens’s wound again. It was a full day before they reached the river. They forded at dusk.

  “We’re likely safe for a while,” Eben said, “so let’s make camp and rest.”

  Cullyn helped Laurens from his saddle.

  “Shall I make a fire?”

  “Why not?” Eben asked cheerfully.

  “I wondered …” Cullyn gestured at the risen moon and the river. “Might the light not give us away?”

  “I doubt it,” Eben said. “I think that all Per Fendur would see would be mistlight. And the Durrym will find us, whether we hide our fires or not.”

  “THIS MAN IS A HERETIC.” Per Fendur tossed a parchment aside. “Burn it all.”

  Amadis stared at the shelves filled with books and scrolls and parchments, and gestured at Drak, who thrust a brand into the hearth and set the cottage alight.

  “And kill all the animals you find,” Per Fendur ordered. “They’ll be familiars, and chained to fey magic.”

  So they set to slaughtering. Most of the wild ones escaped. The dogs and cats and badgers, the foxes and rats were too quick for the slashing swords. The bats exploded in fear too fast for the bladesmen to cut them. But the pigs and chickens were killed and cooked in the charnel house that had been Eben’s home.

  They ate well that night, leaving meat behind them to rot as Per Fendur took them onward across the Alagordar again.

  “WHAT’S THAT?” Cullyn asked as he looked westward. “Something’s burning.”

  “Likely my home,” Eben said. “I think your priest has found it.” His voice was calm, his tone resigned, but Cullyn saw his eyes narrow and his lips draw tight. “It’s not the first time; perhaps not the last. But something should be done about that priest.”

  Cullyn wondered if his own cottage still stood, or if that were torched; and if he could ever return. He stared at Eben, wondering how the old man could accept such destruction so calmly.

  “Shall we ever go back?” he wondered.

  “If we can find the girl,” Eben replied. “And if we can persuade her to return. It’s our only chance—to bring her safely home and thereby gain Lord Bartram’s patronage, his protection against the Per.”

  “And what chance have we?” Cullyn asked. “Three men against the Durrym?” He glanced at Laurens. “And one wounded?”

  “I’ll do my share,” Laurens grunted. “I heal apace.”

  “It shall be diplomacy, not desperation,” Eben said. “Subterfuge rather than sword work.”

  “I’ve never used a sword,” Cullyn murmured.

  “Then it’s time you learned,” said Laurens.

  “Pah!” Eben shook his head irritably. “Do you never think, you soldiers? What shall we do? Go charging in with drawn blades to conquer a Durrym stronghold?”

  “I’d hoped your magic might aid us.” Laurens held out his cup that Cullyn might fill it with tea. “I’d thought you had some wizardly strategy designed.”

  Eben’s laughter set roosting birds to fluttering in surprise. “Strategy? My only strategy was to escape the priest! Beyond that …” He shrugged. “It shall depend on Isydrian’s humor. And that of the other families.”

  “Who is Isydrian?” Cullyn asked.

  “Vashinu of Kash’ma Hall. Father of Lofantyl and Afranydyr. And …”—Eben’s lips curled in a cynical smile as he stared into the fire—“myself.”

  “What?” Cullyn could not help gasping. He stared at Eben, whose silvery hair shone bright in the moonlight that etched his ancient face with lines and shadows. He looked, for all his vigor, an old man—so old as to be ageless, living on the edges of time, perhaps beyond chronology’s constraints. Yet he named Isydrian his father, and Isydrian was Lofantyl’s father. And Lofantyl had seemed not much older than Cullyn. Eben might have been his grandfather, even his great-grandfather.

  Eben laughed at Cullyn’s shocked expression, but softer. “I told you that I am a half-breed,” he said. “And I suppose that now we embark on this great adventure I had better tell you the whole of it.” He spat into the fire and turned his penetrating gaze on both Laurens and Cullyn. “Best you know what you face—at least, as much as I can tell you.”

  They waited as Eben fell silent, composing himself as if he gathered ancient memories.

  “The Kandarians came to this land from across the western seas,” he said. “The Durrym were already here, and lived in concert with nature—they used wood and bone, they did not hew stone or smelt metal. All they had came from the land. The newcome folk, however, owned only metal and determination to seize the land, and they came in their thousands. Why, I do not know, but they found a peaceful land, and for a long time lived beside the Durrym, who saw no reason to expel the incomers. But then—perhaps it’s the nature of folk, I cannot be sure—they decided to expel the Durrym, and out of that the Church grew. A justification of territorial aggrandizement, perhaps? The desire to own? I don’t know—only that Kandar moved against the Durrym and looked to drive them out. There were certain men—never women, which I have never understood—who rose in prominence and established the Church. And the Church decided that it should give the lordlings and petty kings what they wanted—which was to own all the land.” He stared a while at the fire before continuing. “Perhaps it’s Kandarian nature, but is it not true that the poor man wants to be rich, and the rich man wants to be king, and the king is unsatisfied until he owns everything?”

  “I just want to be left alone,” Cullyn said.

  “You’re odd,” Eben returned. “That’s all I wanted, but then you came along, and now …” He shrugged, continuing, “The Durrym objected to the Kandarian invasion and fought the new
comers, and were defeated. There were bloody battles fought, but in the end the Durrym were forced from their homeland into the east, across the Alagordar—the Mys’enh. But …” he chuckled, “they found the magic of the land there—of trees and rivers and rocks—and so were able to defend themselves with that confusion that denies men entry to the fey country.”

  He paused in his narrative and Cullyn asked, “Why could they not use that power before?”

  “I think that the Mys’enh is a focal line,” Eben said, “a division between worlds. There’s no metal in Coim’na Drhu—only nature, and perhaps that divides the one land from the other. Perhaps the land welcomed the Durrym and gifted them with natural power.” He shrugged. “I only know what happened after.”

  “Which was?”

  “That the Durrym were safe across the river. Did Kandarians cross, they’d be turned back in confusion. None could find the Durrym.”

  “For that,” Laurens said, “I’ll vouch.”

  “So the Durrym felt safe,” Eben went on, “but still resented the theft of their homeland. So they’d raid across the Mys’enh, and I was a product of such a raid: Isydrian crossed over and met my mother. And so, here I am.” He raised his arms dramatically. “Born of a Durrym father and a Kandarian mother.”

  “Why did he not stay with her?” Cullyn asked. “Or take her back?”

  “It was, shall we say,” Eben suggested, “a casual acquaintance. But my mother was proscribed by the Church.”

  He fell silent then, and Cullyn saw pain in his eyes.

  “What happened?”

  “My mother was hung,” Eben said flatly, as if he denied or blocked off hateful memories. “They built a gallows and dragged her off her feet. And made me watch as she choked. Then they burned her.”

  “And you? How did you survive?”

  “I was a curiosity,” the wizard said, “so the Church took me in. To study me. I was born of Kandar and Durrym, and I was therefore of interest—gifted with my father’s Durrym magic and then taught the Church Kandarian magic, for which I had a talent. They thought I might find them a way across the river.”

  He paused again, staring at the fire. Cullyn waited no less eagerly than Laurens to hear the rest of the tale.

  “I was held in a cell,” Eben went on, “for eleven years. Priests would come to speak with me, to question me. I learned from them—and then I escaped. That’s another story, for which we don’t now have time—so suffice it to say that I escaped and fled into the Borderlands.”

  “And looked to find your father?” Cullyn asked.

  “No.” Eben shook his head. “Why? He’d deserted me and my mother. I despise Isydrian.”

  “But we go to him?” Laurens asked.

  “What other choice?” Eben returned. “And he may feel guilt that we can use to get this Abra back.”

  “I do not understand,” Cullyn said. “Isydrian is your father, Lofantyl and the other your brothers. But Lofantyl is young.”

  “Time takes different courses,” Eben said. “Here, in Coim’na Drhu, it runs to a separate clock. It’s a different world here, one set apart.” He chuckled. “Have you never woken on some winter morning and thought it night because the sky is still dark and the birds not yet begun to sing? Or found yourself sleepy come the evening, because the light is gone? Yet time—do we judge it by clocks and candles—remains the same. It’s like that: clocks run to men’s accord, but the Durrym have no clocks, only the turning of the days. So perhaps they manage time better than Kandarians.”

  “How old are you?”

  “The last time I thought about it,” Eben answered, “I guessed at something like one hundred and seven, but I’m not sure. I lost count years ago.”

  Cullyn sat back, amazed. “And Lofantyl?”

  “Younger,” Eben said. “He can’t be more than ninety.”

  “But Abra’s younger than me,” Cullyn gasped.

  Eben chuckled. “I told you, no? Cross the river and time changes. Isydrian must be two hundred years old by now. The Durrym live long, eh?”

  Cullyn fell silent, stunned by such concepts, wondering where he had come to, and what might happen to him in this unknown land. Then Laurens spoke, practical as ever.

  “You talk of halls. What are they?”

  “By all the gods, must I explain everything?” Eben sighed.

  “Best you do,” Laurens said, “so that we understand what we face here.”

  “You’ve a point,” the wizard allowed. “So, the Durrym learned from you Kandarians. Or perhaps it’s the way of the world. However, when they retreated into Coim’na Drhu they built fortresses, and divided into families. So the Dur’em Shahn guard the southern borders even as the Dur’em Zheit ward the north. The Dur’em Jahnt own Dobre Henes, which is the greatest hall, and commanded by Santallya. But there are sundry others—the Dur’em Tys, the Dur’em Chan … Shall I go on?”

  Laurens shook his head. “No, only tell me what it all means.”

  “That the Durrym fight amongst themselves,” Eben said. “They vie for power. Isydrian would take Pyris’s holdings and own all the Borderlands. That would make him strong—perhaps enough that he might overcome Santylla and take Dobre Henes, and become overlord.”

  “And we go into this?” Laurens stared at Ebens as if the wizard were mad. “Fugitives run from the frying pan into the fire?”

  “What other choice do we have?” Eben asked. And gestured at Cullyn. “He’s syn’qui, and we’re sucked in, whether we like it or not. We are caught up in his destiny.”

  Laurens looked at Cullyn and said, “Damn you, boy. What have you delivered me to?”

  Cullyn answered honestly: “I don’t know. I don’t understand much of this. I’m just an ordinary man.”

  Eben chuckled. “Far from it, youngling.”

  “Have I any choice in this?” Cullyn asked.

  “None whatsoever,” Eben said. “The gods picked you out and set you on your way; you’ve no choice save to go where they send you.”

  “And if I disagree?” Cullyn glanced at Fey, who cropped rich grass beside Laurens’s bay and Eben’s black mule, and thought of mounting the stallion and crossing back across the river.

  “Then the priest would doubtless find you,” Eben said. “Listen to me. You’re now proscribed as I am, or Laurens. Your only hope is to bring Abra back, or stay in Coim’na Drhu. You have no others. Do you understand?”

  “I could live elsewhere,” Cullyn said. “I could build another cottage—if they burned mine down like yours.”

  “And then they’d find you,” Eben replied.

  “So I’ve no choice at all?” Cullyn asked.

  “Save to accept your destiny,” Eben answered. “And I pray that all the gods bless you.”

  It felt a heavy burden that he did not properly understand Syn’qui? Was that a blessing or a curse, or merely the ramblings of a mad old man? Save he did not think Eben mad. Indeed, in this unknown territory it seemed that Eben was his only hope of return to normality—if that still existed for him. For any of them. He stared across the river at the glow of the burning building and wondered where his life took him.

  Eben interrupted his thoughts. “I doubt they’ll cross by night, so let’s rest. And be gone by dawn.”

  “Should we not set a watch?” Laurens asked.

  “No need. Do they attempt a crossing, I shall likely know.”

  “Only likely?”

  “Probably. And even if they do, all well the Durrym magic shall turn them around.”

  “Can you not set wards?” Lauren asked.

  “Not save you want both Durrym and priest to find us,” Eben returned. “For now, I’d prefer to stay anonymous. And if I set wards, then likely we’ll be noticed. Best a plain watch, eh?”

  Laurens grunted, stroking his wounded side. “Then I’ll take the first watch.” He looked to Cullyn. “You the second. Then …”

  Eben was already settling to sleep.

  “Wake him before
first light, eh?”

  Cullyn nodded.

  He slept a while, albeit uneasily, and then relieved Lauren. He stood guard until the moon was going down, and then, yawning, woke Eben.

  “What?” the wizard demanded irritably.

  “Your watch,” Cullyn told him. “Until dawn.”

  Eben snorted and rose. “What have I got myself into?”

  Cullyn found his bed and sank gratefully into sleep.

  IT WAS A HIGH, bright autumnal morning, the sun shining out of a clear blue sky across which birds darted. Squirrels watched them from the surrounding trees, and when Cullyn rose he saw sloe-eyed deer studying him from the margins of the woodland even as a big dog fox sniffed the air. He built the fire anew and set a kettle to boiling as he waited for Laurens to wake.

  He went to find Eben—and found the ancient wizard slumped against a tree, his eyes closed and stentorian noises erupting from his mouth and nostrils.

  Cullyn stared at him, anger stirring. Eben had refused to set wards about the camp and then fallen asleep on watch. He wondered just how much use magic really was as he nudged the snoring man. Eben stirred, muttering in his sleep. Cullyn shook him, and the old man woke.

  “What is it?”

  “You were supposed to be on watch.”

  “Are we attacked?” Eben rose stiffly, rubbing at his eyes.

  “No,” Cullyn said. “No thanks to you.”

  “Then all’s well.” Eben shook his dirty robe. “Is it time for breakfast?”

  Cullyn sighed and went to prepare the food. Eben stretched and rose. Cullyn could not help but think of a mummified corpse rising from its tomb.

  “Excellent.” Eben savored the odors of bacon and brewing tea. “Perhaps you’re not so useless.”

  “I thought I was syn’qui.” Cullyn resented the old man’s sarcasm.

  “That doesn’t mean you’re of any use,” Eben declared. “Only that you’re a focus of attention. I was syn’qui in my own way—which is why I chose to live alone … until you came along to deliver me all this aggravation.”